fourteenth centuries were cast, and also among writers such as he. He remarks, as the reason for the superiority of the Italian towns, (that is, in point of power) that the "fief holders," in other words the nobles, settled in the cities. "Barbarian nobles became burghers. We may add, what indeed follows from what he states, that the noble burghers were barbarians. There were never more barbarous ruffians to be a curse to any country than these Italian bandits, as we shall see in the sequel.

It is at the basis of the whole question whether the Popes or their opponents were strictly in the right as respects those struggles for territorial possessions, which form the chief scandal of the age of Sixtus and Juliusthe age more immediately preceding the Reformation. This is not as the question of mere temporal power, one of difficulty, it is a simple question of property, a dry matterof-fact. The point is, who were the lawful owners of the territories in Italy, which, before or during the schism of the Papacy, had been lost to the Church, and which, after the return of the Popes, were reclaimed by a succession. of energetic pontiffs, as belonging to the patrimony of St. Peter? Of course, to a Puritan, who professes to hold that there ought to be no Papacy, and no ecclesiastical endowment at all, this can be no question; or it will be a knot he will soon cut with the sword of confiscation; exactly as it was cut in those very days by rapacious princes, who preferred possessing themselves of the lands of the Papacy rather than permit her purity to be imperilled by the possession. But to a Catholic, or even a Protestant, who defends a Church Establishment, and admits that a Prelate or Pontiff may, as such, have property, the primary question must be, whose were these territories of Italy? Now, we reply, they were the Pope's. So early as the time of Pepin, we find that the Pope was endowed with territories comprising, not only Romagna, but Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Sinagaglia, Forli, and many other places. The origin, moreover," says Dollinger, of the states of the Church sprang from the necessities of the times." The gift of Pepin, therefore, was without doubt in conformity with the wish of those who were included in it, and the real sovereignty of the Popes was already so widely extended through the territories above named that the gift is named by many contem

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porary historians as an act of restitution."* cities of the "Pentapolis" pertained to the Papacy, including Bologna, Imola, and Ancona. And Charlemagne confirmed the gift of his father, and added several provinces in the north and centre of Italy, comprising the dukedoms of Spoleto and Benevento, and some portion of Tuscany. There is strong reason to believe that the whole of Tuscany was originally part of St. Peter's patrimony it is mentioned as such by historians; down to the thirteenth centuries we read of vicars of Tuscany. And in 1278, Pope Nicholas III., who received solemn confirmation from the Emperor of the territories above-mentioned, exercised sovereign jurisdiction over Tuscany, the vicariate of which was resigned to him. And the real truth of the matter as regards the contests in which the Popes, during the two succeeding centuries were involved, for the defence or recovery of their territories is this,that the "vicars" who had been appointed to rule those territories on behalf of the Papacy, rebelled against the Holy See-usurped a power which they cruelly abused; and by the dreadful atrocities they perpetrated upon the poor people who were the subjects of the Holy See, made it as much a sacred duty as a right upon its part to seek to put down such usurpations, and recover their lost dominion.

Very early in the history of the Papacy we perceive the existence and the influence, and we will add, the motive malice of calumny. Take the instance of John XII. He, with the concurrence of the bishops and barons of Italy, seeks the aid of Otho, who swore that he would preserve uninjured the possessions and rights of the Roman See, and that he would protect the Pontiff and not intrude upon his sovereignty of Rome. Upon the faith of this oath he received from the Pontiff the imperial crown, which commenced the connection between the German and Italian States. This was the most solemn recognition of the title of the Pontiff, and it was accompanied by as solemn a confirmation of his right to Tuscany, Sicily, Romagna, Spoleto, Benevento, and the rest of the patrimony of St. Peter. Soon after obtaining imperial power, however,

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Otho proved faithless to his oath, and instead of protecting the possessions of the Papacy, acted in an opposite spirit, and with a view to self-aggrandizement. The Protestant writers of the "Universal History" tell us that "Otho claimed the sovereign power in Rome," in direct violation of his oath, and with utter neglect of the Pope, whereupon the Pontiff made an alliance with the view of expelling him from Italy. Then it is we find (we quote these writers) "Otho sent some of his faithful attendants to Rome, to enquire into the behaviour of John." One is forcibly reminded here of the commission issued by our Henry VIII. to one of his faithful attendants, to enquire into the behaviour of the monks and nuns." The enquiries of such "faithful attendants" of princes are never fruitless. Otho's emissaries brought him back word that the Pope led a scandalous life; they were positively scandalized"he really was a bad pope.' Of course he was-because he would not let the Emperor Otho do as he pleased with what did not belong to him. And now, all of a sudden (just like our Henry VIII. again in the matter of his marriage with Katherine) the emperor_conceived scruples as to the validity of the election of the Pontiff, precisely as, a century or so after, his successor, Henry IV. chose to conceive, or pretended he conceived, scruples as to the election of Gregory VII. And in the one case, as in the other, the poor pope was accused of simony. And under imperial influence a schismatical council presumed to assemble to depose him; the council being held, under the personal auspices of the Emperor, under terror of his troops, for he marched his army to Rome-drove the Pontiff away-and then impudently interpreted his absence as an evidence of conscious guilt upon a catalogue of monstrous charges coined against him, concluding with one about drinking the devil's health! Of the atrocity of these charges there is sufficient proof, in the simple fact that the moment Otho and his army withdrew, the Romans brought back their Pope, and reinstalled him. And this is the first strong instance of the class of calumniated Pontiffs called "bad popes." What is here narrated of John XII. will be admitted to apply to Gregory VII., and in our opinion it applies equally to Alexander VI.

Now, we grieve to say that Dollinger states the story of John XII., really as if all the calumnies against him were

true, though the simple historical truth is, that no one ever heard a word of these charges until the emperor had quarrelled with him, and sent his emissaries for the express purpose of "getting up a case" against him. And there is not a particle of honest, unprejudiced evidence against the Pontiff. This is the more to be lamented and deprecated, because Dollinger, speaking of the stories of the time of John X., says very truly that they may be justly suspected, as the only writer whose testimony can be given, is the credulous Luitprand, and then stigmatizes the document he cites as a satirical libel. Yet the charges against John XII. are " 'clenched," (so to speak,) by a story told by the continuator of Luitprand, on whom certainly the mantle" of his lying spirit may be said to have fallen. Nevertheless, having just vindicated one pontiff upon the ground that the testimony against him was not credible, he proceeds to sacrifice another, (probably afraid of not being considered sufficiently candid,) against whom not only is there less credence, but none at all; nay, as to whom there is overwhelming evidence that the accusations were malignant calumnies.

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Here is the true origin of the lying legends of our bad popes. They originated in an age of bad Catholics, and they are perpetuated by candid Catholics-Catholics too candid to be careful for truth-to say nothing of charity.

In the eleventh century, so clear was it that Sicily was a fief of the Holy See, that Nicholas II. granted it with the title of a dukedom to Robert Giuscard; and in the next century we find Innocent II. raising the dukedom into a kingdom, reserving the fealty due to the Holy See ;* as he had granted to the emperor in like manner the duchies of Parma, Mantua, and Modena. Roger, the new king, soon sought to cast off the yoke of fealty-influenced probably by the spirit which dictated the preaching of Arnold of Brescia-who taught that no ecclesiastic could hold endowments; a doctrine very favourable to sacrilege, and likely to be much encouraged by spoliators. It had, in fact, been long acted upon by lay princes-but was now for the first time proclaimed-by way of reducing sacrilege into a system, and making a theory for robbery. Ere long the Holy See was deprived of a great portion of its patrimony.

Dollinger's History of the Church, translated by Dr. Coxe, vol. iii. p. 150. vol. iv. p. 3.

The emperors who had contests with popes about spiritual supremacy-merely for the sake of acquiring a hold on ecclesiastical property now found a shorter, if less plausible species of spoliation. No longer content with retaining in their hands the lands of bishoprics-under pretexts of patronage-openly plundered the Holy See of its possessions. They were soon imitated by the kings of France and Spain, and a host of petty princes who originally had been tributaries of the Popes,-began by being rebels, and ended by becoming robbers.

It was against the satellites of the infamous Frederick II., who laid waste Spoleto and Ancona with Saracen troops, and tortured the inhabitants to death, that we first find a decisive instance of a pope appealing to arms. As Dollinger truly and drily observes," the Pope's excommunication would here have been pronounced in vain-he therefore resolved to meet force with force, and by force of arms obliged the brutal and infidel invaders to fly. "This invasion by a papal army," adds the historian, " to which Gregory IX. found himself necessitated by his duty, to defend his own territories from the attacks of his enemies, was afterwards represented by Frederick as an unprovoked attempt to deprive him of his kingdom." And writers in the interest of the emperor doubtless would represent him on that account as a bad pope. But the question is, whether the Pontiff would have been performing his duty in permitting his own subjects to be "cruelly tortured to death" by infidel invaders, albeit in the pay and employ of Christians, worse than infidels. Let the question be calmly determined by the rules and principles of moral theology in the case of Gregory IX., before a "candid Catholic" comes to consider and condemn the cases of subsequent pontiffs, which we contend were perfectly parallel in this respect, although they have chiefly on this account been covered with obloquy.

Frederick of Germany and Charles of Anjou both alike formed designs of seizing the whole of the Papal territory, and effecting the subjugation of Italy: and the result of the intrigues thus raised was, that at the close of the thirteenth century the Papacy continued vacant for upwards of two years by reason of the contentions between the houses of the Colonna and the Orsini, who had been engaged by the rival factions, and the unhappy Pontiff who shortly after succeeded Boniface VIII. died a victim to the bru